Archive for the ‘Trader Monthly’ Category

The announcement last week that Trader Monthly magazine was ceasing publication was one of those moments when a chance arrow of history scores a perfect bull’s eye on a deserving target. The current recession, brought on at least in part by Wall Street’s bonus lust, has claimed countless innocent victims. But in this case it has finally delivered a comeuppance to our era’s loudest, gaudiest, cockiest champion of Wall Street excess.

By Thomas Frank
The Wall Street Journal

Those who still single out former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain as a symbol of extravagance should take note. Yes, the man once spent over a million dollars having his office remodeled and went on to arrange questionable bonuses for the year in which Merrill lost billions and sold itself to Bank of America.

Just a few years ago, however, the bonus cognoscenti at Trader Monthly depicted Mr. Thain as something of a piker. In an article that began with the sentence, “What, did somebody forget a zero?” they sneered at Mr. Thain’s “reported compensation,” which they claimed was $6 million for 2006, back when he was CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.